- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1977
Now J is a friend of the owners, we tip him out as an equal even though he has no experience as a server. He has some common sense and is eager to help out, that's enough.
He works weekends, or whenever we need him, he's a good guy. His day job he works for Telus, but - close to my age - his bills are paid, his children raised, he's successful in his fashion, he works at the restaurant to help out his friend but something's missing.
It's love.
He's divorced, the particulars are nasty and we don't ask, it's a long story, he'd be happy to share it but we know better.
But, more to the point, he's a current flame that's walking all over him, and this hurts, not just himself but all of us.
He tells us the stories, keeps us updated as to the status, even cynical and derisive me, our advice is always the same.
He's close to my age, perhaps 40 something (early forties) - good looking, 6'1" or so, buff, short curly blonde hair, professionally attired, most women would consider him a catch. He's a slight nervous tic, irregular, somehow it makes him more endearing. He's religious, attends church on Sundays, but not preachy religious, it's his own thing.
I respect that.
But his girlfriend.
We've had all the stories, even served them before he started here to help us out. His girlfriend's a bitch.
At that time we said nothing, not our place, but you could tell. The girls especially.
She's a bit older than him, 46 or so, fit, good looking, youthful, but she's got him on a string like a yo-yo.
Somehow or another he's gotten into her bad books, some months ago, and she's told her children, her friends, what a bad guy he is.
It's not true, we know him as well. He's a good guy. A trifle boring perhaps, but a good guy nonetheless.
They've dated for almost 2 years, he's hopelessly in love. But they've had problems, he's attended - at her bequest - "Anger Management" counseling. Nothing could be more absurd. And they've seen therapists - at his expense - still the relationship falls apart.
He has her passwords, works in IT after all, knows all her email passwords, computer stuff, knows her intimate private life, it cuts him to the quick.
He took her to Mexico, a platonic vacation, caught her writing emails to her children telling them she'd decided to break up with him.
She hadn't told him, wanted to wait for the vacation to end.
He's bought her children laptops - Apple, as that's the brand, paid for their medical expenses, Dental, schooling, still they don't like him. Mom's said he's a bastard, it must be true.
He bought her an engagement ring, $24,000 dollars worth, she broke up with him and kept it, was going to sell it to buy a car...
He bought her a car, Mercedes, for her to use while she helped him set up his business, it wasn't good enough.
And they go on dates and he hacks into her email and discovers her profile on E-Harmony, she hasn't told him, she's off dating other men.
***
He's in love and doesn't know what to do, he begs our advice and then discards it, it's always the same.
I feel for him. I know - too well, his situation. Not that I've blighted lovers with gifts of $24, 000 engagement rings or Mercedes Benzes, but I know that feeling of love that defies reason, that when everything is so obviously wrong I've still pursued it.
You might say I'm a bit of an expert in failed romances. Not to my credit, to be sure, but - like anyone not in the situation, the symptoms, the outcome, is apparent.
I talk to him. I tell him there's no way she'll ever recant the lies she's told her family, children, he's doomed. That we've all seen them together, met her., that everything, heck anything he's told us about her is enough to persuade us that it's going nowhere fast.
He's dejected, he's heard this countless times before. Everyone he's told this story to has given him the same answer. But I, I feel specially qualified to address this, I've more experience in failure than anyone can shake a stick at. Truly, no doubt. And this is going nowhere.
I tell him to busy himself with work, if not Telus then here, the restaurant, Not to date, it will put him at her level. Don't talk to her, if you have to because she's called you keep it pleasant but explain you're busy and have to go. Easy advice to give, but damned tough to follow.
Give up her passwords, let her know he has them, let her change them, obsessively stalking her is a bad thing. Damn I know that one.
And keep busy. With work, the church, things important to him. In time - how much? I can't say. Years even. But in time she'll disappear. Meanwhile I just want to hug him, tell him he's a good, no - a great guy, and one day he'll find someone who appreciates him.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2011
The Nephew has lost his cat, Marvin.
Marvin was an indoor cat who somehow got out in the past couple of days and hasn't been seen or heard from since.
He's upset. He loved Marvin.
I try to console him, lightly as is my nature, with an offer of one of my cats, but he won't hear of it, he's busy calling the SPCA and posting up flyers in his neighborhood.
Now when he describes his loss it seldom centers on the cat. Marvin, yes, he was a good cat, but more important was the Christmas outfit he had ordered for him from Italy, $300.00 he spent, he was going to dress Marvin as Santa Clause and the dog and other pet (??? I don't know) as elves.
The costumes, they're nothing without the players expected to wear them.
And so I offer again my cats, either one, he can have his pick, and as the days pass and Marvin fails to show up he's considering it....
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1837
Yet another customer barred on Friday, a regular asshole, pleasant enough to me, but I'm not the only one that works there.
A certain famous - in a Calgary sort of way - individual, who's son has done well in Politics. He works for the city, or some such.
According the Nephew and other sources he's been barred from quite a few other restaurants in the city. He knows this, in his year and a half here he's gotten quite well connected.
The reason is that he's had the audacity to complain about his steak, it's overdone, he's right but G "bought" him a half litre of wine in compensation and offered to replace it.
The steak and wine sufficed, he seemed (as it were) happy enough.
He's in with his secretary, attractive, 30-something, shapely, the female staff have informed me that they're having an affair, me, I have trouble ascribing it, the customer in question is perhaps 55, 60, short, in feature and manner a toad.
Still, who am I to comment? Stranger things have happened. At lunch they hammer the wine, in the evening when he brings his wife and other guests they are quiet, drink only water. He, like so many others, has a very apparent double life. I don't comment.
He complains after lunch about being charged for his steak (overdone, it's true) and the charge for the substitution on his side dish of Pasta.
I don't argue, am not generally the argumentative type, I have a suspicion how this will pan out but just deduct it from the bill. G dealt with him, G's gone home, I don't need the hassle.
When G comes in for the night shift I tell him, the owner's near and goes off his nut, never particularly liked this customer (none of the staff did either), more grievances, who does he think he is? And he has me compose a letter on the computer, Mr. So and SO is no longer welcome here, he's been barred.
It's happened before.
Now again. We bar people with disconcerting regularity, relying on staff to remember who's been barred and who hasn't, the owner, he doesn't forget. Usually we're so thrilled to see the end of these ass-holes we remember.
The thing about being barred from this restaurant, as opposed to any other restaurant (and I can't help wondering how failed your life must be to be barred from here, let alone another restaurant....to think some people are regular at this?!!!) is that so many of our regular customers know one another that in a way, peculiar and obtuse that you will understand or not, you've been barred from society.
Almost all of our regular customers know one another.
How, then, to explain that you can't join a friend or wife for lunch at a favorite dining spot? DO you just say you're not hungry, on a diet, do you state that you've had a disagreement with the owner (as with so many other local owners/proprietors)? Do they feel any sort of shame and embarrassment? As far as I'm concerned he wasn't the worst customer by far, the competition for that place is vigorous and ongoing, but this customer had the audacity to complain about 2 things on the bill, and that was socially the end of him.
We don't so badly need the business. He's been barred.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1926
He's unusually merry for the morning, flushed cheeks and a contented smile upon his face, the Owner suspects that he's again taken to drinking.
He's not going to last.
The staff tells me that he stinks of booze, I can't tell, I give all the male staff a fairly wide berth out of caution, there are the not infrequent belches and farts that must be navigated around. They watch the security cameras, but they can't see any trace of his drinking, the owner looks around and can find nothing on the bar, suspects him of quick swigs from the bottle, I'm suspecting there might be a hip flask concealed in his slightly capacious trousers.
He's short, bald, looks easily 10 years older than he is, that is what the waiter's lifestyle will do to you. But he seems happy enough. A gold chain flashes from beneath a rolled up cuff, a couple of large and gaudy rings, he's old school, where you tried to look at least as rich as the people you served.
Pouring drinks, carrying a tray or plate, he's got the shakes and has to set things down, sobriety, perhaps, or the long years of drinking catching up to him.
Not even 10 years older than me he's a career waiter, everyone in Calgary knows him, have been served by him somewhere throughout the city. Knowing him is not a good thing, it's an excuse for him to stop and chat and catch up with our customers, he's not so quick as it is and now he's doing less.....
And he talks shit. Waiter shit, in 4 languages, fixing the house, his wife, his trips to the bar where he only drinks soda pop and coffee (being a recovering alcoholic and all), his operations and general health, the importance of having doilies to line the plates with....
We all know he's not long for the course, as soon as someone better walks through the door, it's tough to be too friendly knowing, he knows this as well, brings in sandwiches to share, somewhere in the back of his mind there must be the realization that he's not carrying his weight, that this is just another short stop on the way to unemployment...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1943
She came to the restaurant last year with her mother, father, sister, her mother wanted a job.
That's how they do things.
I laughed and told the owner that they were gypsies, and a couple of the older ladies in the kitchen would catch your eyes and smile, they knew what I was talking about, the owner was dubious.
And while her mother didn't work out, a bit lazy, a bit stupid, as it were, the daughter stayed and helped out in the front of house.
Now at first she was a hard worker - for a hostess, wandering around and pouring water when she wasn't seating tables, but that was merely the first impression, and shortly in to the job she began moderating the work she did and carved out a niche flirting with the bosses nephew, eating buns and stolen desserts, texting away in dark corners of the restaurant....
Her father hasn't had a job since immigrating to Canada. They all arrived about two years ago, and at the beginning the father was careful to get everyone jobs, the wife, his daughter - the one old enough to work, but for himself there was nothing. He wasn't particularly interested in working. What with the government cheques and his wife and daughter's income, he didn't really need to work.
The mother, she was, while she worked there - very friendly with the owner. Friendly in the sense that she'd want to discuss private matters with him locked in his office, and most of the staff caught on pretty quick what she was up to. The owner as well, and so she made her exit.
She found another job, locally in the Italian community, and we heard through the grapevine that the owners of **** were getting a divorce as a result of an affair she'd been conducting, and everyone nodded, they all knew, after all - and here they borrow my phrase - "they're gypsies".
I tease her about being a gypsy, she doesn't like it, argues - poorly, that they're not and she doesn't understand that I'm just winding her up. I stop, less to stop giving offense than because she's beginning to wind me up...
She likes to talk. About school, for someone who had to learn English as a third language she's doing pretty good, in most of her classes she's achieved honors with distinction. One has the feeling that she's teacher's little pet...
Still something's not right.
She tells us how smart she is. She's so smart that her guidance counselor is worried that if her brain keeps running as fast as it's running it could explode, she's that smart. She tells us this with a straight face, she believes every word of it. And if academic performance is everything then indeed she's very smart. I'm not so convinced.
She checks the tips, every tip that comes off the table she checks the amount. She's tipped out, a busgirl, not a server, but she wants to know what we make. Staff don't like this.
She complains about her tip out, she's the last to arrive, the first to leave, her tips, they're discretionary, the waiters agree on what she's to be given but she finds cause for quarrel every time.
I bring in the trinkets - garage sale finds for the waitresses, she coos over them, asks me why I don't bring her any....one day I find her something, she throws it back at me - "not my style" she tells me.
***She wonders why I don't bring her things. I mustn't like her. Can we please talk about why I don't like her? She likes me.
***Now the Nephew, he's probably given her vanity a little too much of a boost, perpetually groping her and trying to pull her into corners, youth is always attractive but she - specifically - is not so. She has the general shape of the A&W Root Bear, and forever you find her snacking on the desserts she's supposed to be preparing for tables, or dipping biscotti into sweetened milk.
***I pick up some ice cream, it's the weekend and I've thought to make a bit of a treat, iced cappuccinos for the staff. And she follows me about, excited as a cat when they hear the sound of opened cat food, telling me I should have bought a different flavour of ice cream, never letting me out of her sight, waiting until I've poured them out and quickly grabbing one for herself before taking a sip and complaining "I hate coffee!!! Why did you have to make it with coffee!!!"
***On Saturdays we all kick in for lottery tickets. When approached with the offer to buy in she excuses herself with "I'm not 18"....
***She catches you at the worst times. Most of her evening is spent hiding in the darker corners of the restaurant or chatting with the hostess, still there comes a couple of times where she has to look like she's doing a semblance of work. She's gotten a dessert order off a small table and is too flustered to undertake both the desserts and the cappuccinos, and so starts with you - "Are you busy?...." And I've a vodka bottle in one hand and 2 bottles of wine on the counter for different tables - she can't handle liquor, she's underage - and you look at her.
For somebody so smart she's pretty fucking stupid.
She's manipulative, she takes to telling me the "Manager wants you to set this table..." when I'm running my ass off. She's the busgirl, but it's a bit beneath her. And, oddly, I know what tables need setting, and do it ASAP, but dead tables are not always the priority. I check with the manageress, she's said no such thing, and we're starting to get a little bit of a handle on what makes this little sociopath tick. It's high-school musical, every day...
These small manipulations, they're not limited to me, I see her playing the same games with the other staff, and they're beginning to catch on.
I collect corks, vague plans for a grand mixed media art project. At the moment, schedule and all what it is, I'm only collecting. But she finds my stash of corks beneath the till and asks if she can have some. "What for?" I inquire, no reason, she just wants some. I tell her can take some, but it's a generous some, and I catch her hand beneath the till on numerous occasions, she pretends it's a game, these petty thefts, but I'm annoyed.
***Everyone else, it would seem, is annoyed as well, and staff is agreed that she has to go. Well, everyone but the Nephew, who's agreed but he has other hopes to consider as well.... We approach the owner, he agrees that she's a bit young, but we decide to give her fair warning...
***She still can't figure out why I don't like her. I assure her it doesn't matter, that all I expect is that she shows up and does some work, she doesn't like to work and instead follows the hostess around telling her tales of her busy social life. Or hides away in corners to snack and text her secret admirers. The Nephew, he's a bit of an obsession with her, her youth, specifically, and he's been interrupted in compromising positions with her in the bathroom during the shift, she'll do whatever it takes to keep the job, as long as it doesn't involve work.
"Your obsession with fucking her..." I tell him "Will end with her fucking you...". He pays no attention, she's wants him to get his own apartment, move out from his girlfriend, then she'll sleep with him. He does all his thinking with his cock.
She follows me around the restaurant, being overly friendly, I'm the holdout, no one else particularly likes her, all would be glad to see her go, but I'm a little more direct in my criticism. Not personal, merely "please do some work", and she doesn't like that, being told what to do, and so seeks to ingratiate herself to me by telling me of a book she's working on and would I like to proofread it for her? and I politely decline, too busy with work, other projects on the go, and really I'm not a critic...
Still she seeks to flatter me, my judgement, it would be doing her the biggest of favours, and I dismiss her, she returns with another favour, compliments me on trifles, these pathetic attempts to win my confidence, chastised when I send her away disappointed.
And there's no doubt in my mind, no doubt whatsoever, she's a gypsy.